Infective endocarditis (IE); is an infectious disease which generally develops due to the involvement of cardiac valves, congenital cardiovascular lesions, prosthetic valves and other prosthetic materials by specific microorganisms during transient bacteremia. Despite developments in diagnosis and treatment, high mortality rates make it an important element of our current agenda. Embolic events are common and one of the life-threatening complications of IE; which may result in difficulty in diagnosis as they can imitate other pathological conditions [1,2]. In this report, we present a patient with double valve IE whose first diagnosis was ischemic stroke due to embolic complications of IE.

Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of mortality throughout the world. The history of cardiovascular research is rich and although this study is not intended to be a review of the subject, a short summary related to the present work is necessary. Interested readers are invited to review articles such as [1-4]. These studies are representative of the literature which deal with the complexities of hemodynamics. Among the important subtopics are the relationship between the wall and the fluid. The fluid exerts a shear stress on the wall which is believed to be a causing of thickening of the wall and the initiation of cardiovascaular disease. The flow also has an impact on transport through the arterial wall [5-20].

Atrial myxomas are the most common primary cardiac tumors to diagnose. They are benign and have variable presentation. They have an excellent prognosis following surgical excision. We report a case of a 60 year old female who presented with initial signs of both right and left heart failure, fever and cough. Auscultation of the heart revealed an apical mid diastolic murmur. Trans-thoracic and transesophageal echocardiography revealed a pedunculated, giant left atrial myxoma that prolapsed through the mitral valve into the left ventricle in diastole producing functional mitral valve stenosis. The patient underwent a successful surgical excision of the tumor. The diagnosis and management of atrial myxomas is here reviewed.

A 70 year old woman had a Reveal LINQ (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN, USA) implantable loop recorder (ILR) implanted to investigate a cardiac cause of syncope.Due to the ability of this device to utilise home monitoring, early detection of a significant bradycardia allowed early intervention with permanent pacing before any further episodes of syncope occurred.This highlights the utility of home monitoring with newer generation ILRs.

Mr F.P., a 33-y/o man consulted after 3 months of general status alteration with a loss of 7 kgs and nocturnal sweats. His blood pressure was controlled up to 190/110 mmHg. Clinical examination by general pratictioner was considered as normal. Bitherapy by calcium channel blockers and alpha blockers was given.

A 57 year old female was admitted with an acute presentation of increasing breathlessness, pain in interscapular area associated with dizziness and vomiting. There was no orthopnea, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea or chest pain. Past medical history was significant for recurrent SVT between the ages of 15 and 30 which she was able to control by vagal manoeuvres. She was diagnosed to have pulmonary hypertension but no cause was found. She had progressive dyspnoea for last 5 years and was admitted with cardiac failure on 3 occasions. She was tachycardic with a heart rate of 100 /m and tachypnec with a respiratory rate of 30/m, normotensive -130/90 – no difference in blood pressures in right and left arm, there was no peripheral edema. Examination of precardium revealed RVH with pulmonary hypertension with a diffuse apical impulse, parasternal heave, RVS3, EDM in pulmonary area and parasternal area. There was a dull note in left infra-axillary and infra-scapular areas with absent breath sounds suggestive of a pleural effusion. Her haemoglobin was low at 8 g/l.

Background: The possibility of culturing heart cells in order to regenerate damaged tissue is a challenging problem. Recent observations have demonstrated the possibility of isolating and expanding resident cardiac stem cells, which could favor regeneration and functional improvement of the myocardial tissue. Aims: To investigate two different culturing media: one promoting c-kit cells’ growth and the other promoting differentiation in cardiac muscle cells. Methods: We obtained primary cultures from left ventricle myocardial tissues of 10 human hearts of patients with end-stage heart failure who received heart transplantation. Cells were first cultured in a medium containing high serum and low calcium/magnesium (Ca2+ /Mg2+) to promote cell growth (medium A). Than they were cultured in another medium that contained lower serum concentration and a variety of different factors in order to induce cell differentiation (medium B). The presence of c-kit, specific for stem cells, a-sarcomeric actin (SA), specific for skeletal and cardiac muscle cells, and a-smooth muscle actin (SMA), specific for smooth muscle cells was studied by immune-cytochemical analysis.

Mr F.P., a 33-y/o man consulted after 3 months of general status alteration with a loss of 7 kgs and nocturnal sweats. His blood pressure was controlled up to 190/110 mmHg. Clinical examination by general pratictioner was considered as normal. Bitherapy by calcium channel blockers and alpha blockers was given. Few days later, hypertension was still severe between 160/100 and 200/120mmHg despite the bitherapy. Blood analysis revealed potassium at 3,1mmol/L. The patient was then hospitalized in a nephrological department. Plasma renin activity and aldosterone were elevated as shown on (Table 1). Clinical examination revealed a 8 cm mass in the left testicul, painless, of tissular consistency, without any inflammatory sign or adenopathy. Mr FP has noticed this mass for one year but this was rapidly growing within the last 2 months. Ultrasound and CT scan showed that the mass was depended on the left spermatic cord and associated with one nodule on liver, two juxta-hepatic, an osteolysis on the right hip and a mediastinal lymph node mass. The biopsy of the liver nodule revealed a leiomyosarcoma with high malignity staging.

Background: Autonomic nerve innervation pathway from the ventricular GP to the pulmonary veins (PV) remains unclear. Aim: This study investigates the autonomic innervations from aortic root ventricular GP to the PVs. Nissl’s staining and fluorescent dual label staining were performed to determine the neuron structure in the aortic root GP in five dogs. Avidin Biotin Complex (ABC) staining were performed to study the efferent autonomic pathway from the aortic root GP to the PVs.

Coronary artery aneurysm (CAA) is defined as abnormal dilatation of a coronary artery luminal diameter to 1.5 to 2 times wider than the adjacent normal segment. Giant coronary artery aneurysms are rare, with a reported prevalence of 0.02% to 0.2% [1]. Most of the giant coronary artery aneurysms are asymptomatic, but some patients present with angina pectoris, sudden death, fistula formation, pericardial tamponade, compression of surrounding structures, or congestive heart failure.

A 70 year old woman had a Reveal LINQ (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN, USA) implantable loop recorder (ILR) implanted to investigate a cardiac cause of syncope.Due to the ability of this device to utilise home monitoring, early detection of a significant bradycardia allowed early intervention with permanent pacing before any further episodes of syncope occurred.This highlights the utility of home monitoring with newer generation ILRs.

Background: The possibility of culturing heart cells in order to regenerate damaged tissue is a challenging problem. Recent observations have demonstrated the possibility of isolating and expanding resident cardiac stem cells, which could favor regeneration and functional improvement of the myocardial tissue.

A 57 year old female was admitted with an acute presentation of increasing breathlessness, pain in interscapular area associated with dizziness and vomiting. There was no orthopnea, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea or chest pain. Past medical history was significant for recurrent SVT between the ages of 15 and 30 which she was able to control by vagal manoeuvres. She was diagnosed to have pulmonary hypertension but no cause was found. She had progressive dyspnoea for last 5 years and was admitted with cardiac failure on 3 occasions.